Aircraft flight displays continue to advance in sophistication, achieving increasingly higher levels of information density and, consequently, presenting a greater amount of visual information to be perceived and understood by the operator. In many applications, it is important that visual displays provide a proper cognitive mapping between what the operator is trying to achieve and the information available to accomplish the task. As a result, such systems increasingly utilize human-factor design principles in order to build instrumentation and controls that work cooperatively with human operators. Accordingly, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has promulgated a number of standards and advisory circulars relating to flight instrumentation. More particularly, Title 14 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) Part 25, Sec. 25.1321 et seq. provides guidelines for arrangement and visibility of instruments, warning lights, indicators, and the like. Similarly, detailed guidelines related to electronics displays can be found in FAA Advisory circular 20-88A, Guidelines on the Marking of Aircraft Powerplant Instruments (September 1985).
One area in particular that has not profited in advances in graphical user interfaces is the field of flight deck information systems, such as aircraft flight management systems (FMS). Current flight decks typically are designed with separate, dedicated controllers for avionics interface, such as, for example, radios, FMS, weather radar, display controllers, and the like. These controllers typically are installed in various locations across the flight deck and are operated by push buttons contained on the controller device. Although current-generation FMS systems generally have a dedicated controller and display called the MCDU (Multifunction Control Display Unit) or CDU (Control Display Unit), flight plan entry and editing continues to be performed using cumbersome, text-based techniques that have not changed significantly in the last decade. As a result, flight crews frequently complain that current flight management systems (FMS) are non-intuitive, difficult to interpret, and require too much “heads-down” time. Indeed, due to the high cockpit workload involved, many flight crews abandon the FMS altogether, choosing instead to fly the aircraft using the autopilot.
Systems and methods are therefore needed to overcome these and other limitations of the prior art. Specifically, there is a long felt need for an interface to flight deck information systems that is intuitive and easy to use, and which enables flight crew members to easily and effectively enter and modify data displayed by the aircraft flight deck. Further, there is a long felt need for an interface to aircraft flight deck information systems that substantially centralizes avionics controls within one controller and decreases flight crew “heads-down” time.